I am pretty much a gardener. I've tried outlining but sometimes I get so carried away that I just give up. I once wrote an 80 page outline whereas I could have merely done it in two-three pages and just started actually writing the story.
However, I usually write screenplays, in which for the most part I usually have a treatment or outline before I started writing the script. However that isn't always the case. With both Wake and Fallen, two short films I co-wrote and directed, I literally sat down in front of the computer one night and started writing. By the early morning hours I had a fifteen-twenty page script. Then the revision process follows. For Wake, I revised the script more than twenty times before I got a shooting draft, and even then at the last minute just before filming I called in my friend to do a polish because I needed perspective. Also, I've found out writing collaboratively with someone else makes the writing process much more fluid and organic. Whereas if I write by myself I'm locked in a room for hours and hours on end, with a partner you have someone to spar off with creatively and it helps considerably.
I've actually just sold Fallen as a graphic novel to Image Comics which I'm currently writing, and I've discovered that while the format is not too dissimiliar to writing a screenplay, the method and approach is an entirely different animal. Since I had the story already conceived by the time I began writing, I simply wrote a much smaller and concise outline and that's what I've been following. I've tried to remain true to the short film in which the graphic novel was based, but I try not to limit myself creatively and if an idea occurs to me while I'm writing, I just flow with it.
So to be honest I haven't written much prose but I would like to approach writing a novel at some point. Screenplays are so format specific it disallows you from going into specifics and really fleshing out your imagination. I've written many short stories and I love the ability to just write unrestrained by format.
However, I usually write screenplays, in which for the most part I usually have a treatment or outline before I started writing the script. However that isn't always the case. With both Wake and Fallen, two short films I co-wrote and directed, I literally sat down in front of the computer one night and started writing. By the early morning hours I had a fifteen-twenty page script. Then the revision process follows. For Wake, I revised the script more than twenty times before I got a shooting draft, and even then at the last minute just before filming I called in my friend to do a polish because I needed perspective. Also, I've found out writing collaboratively with someone else makes the writing process much more fluid and organic. Whereas if I write by myself I'm locked in a room for hours and hours on end, with a partner you have someone to spar off with creatively and it helps considerably.
I've actually just sold Fallen as a graphic novel to Image Comics which I'm currently writing, and I've discovered that while the format is not too dissimiliar to writing a screenplay, the method and approach is an entirely different animal. Since I had the story already conceived by the time I began writing, I simply wrote a much smaller and concise outline and that's what I've been following. I've tried to remain true to the short film in which the graphic novel was based, but I try not to limit myself creatively and if an idea occurs to me while I'm writing, I just flow with it.
So to be honest I haven't written much prose but I would like to approach writing a novel at some point. Screenplays are so format specific it disallows you from going into specifics and really fleshing out your imagination. I've written many short stories and I love the ability to just write unrestrained by format.
I wondered why my post wasn't showing up in the Coraline thread. 
